Netta Syrett

“ Behind its rose-pink summit white clouds drifted, and round it circled white pigeons. It was a tower that Cecily had learned to love, its very incongruity in the midst of London roofs appealing to her imagination. It was an exotic flower, blossoming radiantly above the gray heart of London. She looked at it to-day with a fresh sense of its beauty. It affected her like the glamour of an Eastern story. With a keen sense of gratitude she realized that beauty once more had power to thrill her. She remembered how at the Priory last year the blue sky had been hateful, the sunshine vain. ”

“ Cecily was one of those women who develop late, in intellect, in all that makes personality, even, under favorable circumstances, in beauty. At twenty-five she had been still immature. Now, at thirty-two, she gave the impression of a woman self-possessed, if gracious and charming in manner; a woman who had looked close at life, and was under no illusions with regard to it.
As Rose listened to her, she gained the impression of a full and varied existence, full of interest, at least, if not of happiness. Of Mayne, Cecily spoke quite frankly. ”

“ She fixed her swimming eyes upon a leafy branch opposite, and spoke in an infinitely sad, deep voice.
“Don’t, Philippa!” urged Robert, in distress. “I can’t bear it. You know how I want to shield you. You are not strong enough to battle with life. You know how I long to——”
“Ah, my dear friend, don’t!” she cried, smiling at him with trembling lips. “We’ve discussed that—and you know I can’t allow it. Don’t make me regret having taken this beautiful holiday at your hands. I never thought you could persuade me even to that, but you are wonderful when you plead, Fergus.” ”

“ Summers, her face, still babyish and immature, full of a painful foreboding. “But I dread it,” she added, almost in a whisper. “Look at Cecily. Think how much in love she was. Do you remember Robert, too?... And what has come of it all? What has been the good of it?”
[271] “Perhaps more than you think,” Rose answered, quickly. “Love is not a thing which demands payment by result. And besides, my dear, in any case, what has that to do with you? Each of us must travel our own road, take our own risks, meet our own fate. No one else’s experience is any guide.” ”

“ Mayne looked at it once, and averted his gaze with a half frown. At first it was altogether of her he was thinking, his pulses still beating rather quickly, as they always beat when he first saw her, at every one of their meetings. At the beginning of their intimacy he had been terribly afraid of betraying himself, of making their friendship impossible, but he had long ago learned to trust his own power of self-control, and his manner to Cecily had been the perfection of that affectionate friendliness whose justification is long acquaintance. ”

“ Nigel’s devotion was so beautiful; his attitude of reverential adoration was so supremely right and touching. It was the forever profoundly necessary and inevitable attitude of the eternal man towards the eternal woman. At this time she thought and talked much about the sacred name of “wife.” So intense was her conviction that the true meaning of life lay in the sacramental view of marriage, that Robert and his claims sank into the background of her consciousness. In her heart, which she pictured as a sort of solemn temple of purity, Nigel was radiantly enthroned. ”

“ She hastened into her bedroom, which opened out of the studio, and began to make a hasty toilet. The room was untidy and not very clean, and if to the garments revealed when the dressing-gown was thrown aside the same remark applied, it must in justice be remembered that even perfect cleanliness is dependent upon the amount of living wage. By the time the downstairs bell rang at a few minutes past four, Philippa looked like the Blessed Damosel, and Mr. Nevern, as he followed her up the studio stairs, felt what it was to be on the right side of the gold bar of heaven. ”

“ They were coming to close quarters.
“Was there ever a barrier?” he inquired.
“Yes,” she said, with unexpected suddenness. “Robert didn’t like it.”
Mayne slowly raised his head, and their eyes met. He was silent.
“Oh, I know what you’d like to say!” cried Cecily, hurriedly; “but it’s no use arguing about it. Most men regard their wives, so long as they’re in love with them, in an absolutely primitive way—there’s no getting out of it—they do. For every other woman, freedom, individuality, the ‘exercise of her own gifts,’ of course. For a man’s wife, while he loves her, no life but his. ”

“ Cecily scarcely knew how to define her sensations, but relief was one of them—the greatest. She was glad, inexpressibly glad to find her new suspicions of Robert groundless. She started when Philippa sprang with sudden passion to her feet.
“Oh!” she cried, “how you despise me, don’t you? But if you’d had my existence—— Do you know what life means for a woman who has no money?” she demanded, fiercely. “Do you know what it means to be turned out into the world when your parents die, without influence, without proper training for any work, just to sink or swim as you can? ”

“ A fantastic sense of the ludicrousness of life, of all situations that seem tragic, excited her to trembling laughter. Her sense of humor had been roused, bitterly roused, but it animated her as nothing else could have done, and for the rest of the evening Cecily was her most brilliant self. That Robert was not listening to her remarks was a circumstance which, at an early stage of the evening, Mayne noticed with some incomprehension and more resentment. ”

“ Don’t think you’re done with love because you dread it. You’re young. You have tremendous vitality. Look at yourself now in the glass, and think what you were two years ago. You’re not the sort of woman for whom things are very easily over.”
“And even so,” interrupted Cecily, passionately, “granted that what you say is true, would you have me give up Dick’s friendship?—a friendship which was forced upon me by my husband, for a reason which he has since made sufficiently obvious?”
“I would have you completely realize the situation, that’s all,” returned Rose, calmly. ”

“ She has loved her husband. She will never really love again. But that is not saying there’s no danger if you stay. Let us imagine that you stay. Cecily is a woman—therefore all things are possible. But, Dick, can you look me in the face and tell me that you don’t know the disaster of—of such a possibility? Even now, though she doesn’t love him, she’s worrying about Robert because he looks ill, because he’s unhappy,—heaven knows what. Just the maternal instinct, you know. She will never cease to worry about him. Suppose you gained your point; would you keep her friendship? ”

“ Philippa rose rather unsteadily to her feet. She began to realize that she was safe. With the knowledge, her old self, the self made out of incessant posing, constant mental attitudinizing, began to gather like a shell over the elemental human being for whom Cecily had been experiencing a very passion of pity. ”

“ Through a veil of golden haze, Cecily had a vision of burnished silver and gold, of peacock color and rose, lining the walls of the chapel, and her thoughts were carried back to the mediæval artisans in cathedrals now hoary with age; to the workers of long ago whose busy hands are dust. ”

“ Wilmot would be a godsend. “I shall learn more than I could pick up in three months, otherwise,” was her smiling reflection as she settled herself opposite her hostess at one of the tables of colored marble, in the embrasure of a window.
“We’re early, or we shouldn’t get a table,” pursued Lady Wilmot. “Always a hideous crush here. Well, my dear, I hope the babies are better? What an untold nuisance children must be! Measles is part of them, I suppose? How do you like your cottage? And when is Jack coming home? Tea and cake and muffins”—this to the waiter, in parenthesis. ”

“ Mechanically, seeing nothing, he walked down Grosvenor Road, and on into Victoria Street, [197] where, though the omnibuses had ceased to run, cabs still wandered, or passed one another at full speed, while an occasional motor-car shot amongst them. As he turned out of the street into the stillness of Carlisle Place, his eyes fell upon the Cathedral tower, majestic against the night sky sown with stars. Like Cecily, he felt its quietude, but only as something which accentuated the restless, uneasy tumult of his thoughts. Upstairs, when he reached the flat, the light was burning in the hall. ”

“ A tumult of thoughts and emotions filled his mind, as he walked beside this woman from whom he had parted five years ago, feeling that with her he had lost all that made life worth living; its savour, its keenness, its delight. Five years had shown him that in a man’s life, at least, risks, excitements, hard work, and some hard fighting can so soften a woman’s image as to make it no longer a thing of torture. On his first return to England, two years after his departure, he [96] had not seen Cecily. He could not trust himself to meet her calmly, and he would not meet her otherwise. ”

“ The porch led almost directly into one of those square, panelled halls which make the most charming of sitting-rooms. At the farther end a long, low casement window framed a vista of the garden—green, luxuriant, brilliant with flowers. On the window-ledge there was a china bowl of sweet peas.
[3] Mrs. Summers looked about her with interest. There was not much furniture, but each piece, though simple, was beautiful in form at least, and in some cases obviously rather costly. It was furniture chosen with discretion. “Better off than they used to be,” was her mental comment. ”

“ He rose, and stood leaning against the window-frame.
“In the face of that?” he jerked his head in the direction of Robert’s study, and laughed again. There was something in his tone, a savage irony, mingled with a kind of appeal, that made it very difficult for Rose to keep her head. Yet she managed to answer coolly.
“Oh, yes—quite. But, as I’ve often found, it takes one man to expect logic from another.”
“There’s something more important than logic that the average man surely may expect,” returned Mayne. He had thrown off all attempt at lightness of tone by now. ”

“ It’s awful to get into a net. I saw your husband was interested in me—at the beginning, I mean. I couldn’t afford to let him go.”
The slow color rose to Cecily’s cheek. Chaotic emotions surged within her; among them shame, and a curious despairing pity that after all her husband had never been loved—merely tricked,—deceived. “Poor Robin!” she found herself repeating silently, with a sort of passion of protection, as she returned in thought to the “little” name of their happy days.
Philippa was still talking, wildly, incoherently, as though with relief. ”

“ He asked the question with mockery.
“Viewed from the outside,” returned Rose, judicially, “I should say it has merits. Cecily has been badly treated. You are a decent man, and there are no children to be considered. But there are two drawbacks. One is that she doesn’t love you—yet, at least. The other—and it is the most important—is Cecily’s own nature.”
Mayne turned round. “Yes?” he said. “What about that?”
“You spoke of her husband enslaving her again,” she answered. “He will never do so. All that made that possible is over. But Cecily happens to be a very faithful woman. ”

“ I dare say I didn’t amuse Robert.”
Mrs. Summers made an impatient exclamation.
“Ah, but it was a mistake!” cried Cecily; “men expect to be amused. If we want to keep them we must work hard.... And then when I did try to pull myself together and be cheerful, it was too late. Nothing I did pleased him. If I put on a pretty frock he never noticed. If I tried to talk in my old way—I used to be quite amusing once, wasn’t I, Rose?” ”

“ She’s a host in herself.”
Cecily laughed shortly. “Don’t you admire her? She’s very handsome.”
Mayne shrugged his shoulders, as he threw himself down on the grass close to the low step on which she was seated. Cecily smiled. She felt childishly comforted by the contemptuous action.
The long meadow-grass was starred with daisies, and jewelled with tall spikes of rose-red sorrel. The field sloped to a full, slow stream, which lazily stirred tufts of forget-me-nots in its passing. ”